Fast ein Jahrzehnt nach dem Tod von Jacques Israelievitch, der als jüngster stellvertretender Konzertmeister in Chicago damals von George Solti ins Orchester geholt wurde und später u. a. 20 Jahre als Konzertmeister des Toronto Symphony Orchestra agierte, wird hier von ihm mit seiner Klavierpartnerin Christina Petrowska Quilico die Sammlung der Sonaten für Klavier und Violine zzgl. der beiden Variationszyklen von Mozart vorgelegt.

Auch wenn die Aufnahme nicht neu ist, was man ihr technisch nicht anhört, so zeigt sich doch das Duo mit sehr frischem Spiel, das durch Elan und bewegende Intensität die Werke adelt. Der vermittelte Eindruck ist der von elegant zupackenden Musikern, die ihre Begeisterung für diese Stücke jedem zeigen möchten. Das gelingt vorzüglich. Dabei gehen sie von fließenden und natürlichen Bewegungsabläufen aus und setzten Akzente und markante Punkte nur dezent deutlich, so dass die Lebendigkeit der Musik erzeugt und gewahrt wird, aber nicht gekünstelt erklingt.

Ein erster partieller Höreindruck hatte eine gewisse Rauheit in der technischen Umsetzung angedeutet. Das mag daran liegen, dass Israelievitch die letzten Aufnahmen schon mit Krebs im Endstadium nur unter großen Schmerzen aufnehmen konnte. Das wurde aber über die längere Strecke glücklicherweise nicht bestätigt. Umso schöner ist es, dieses Tondokument, dem man die Belastung nicht anhört, eines auf dem nordamerikanischen Kontinent zu seiner Zeit angesehenen Musikers zu hören.

Mit dieser Übersicht wird gleichzeitig auch die Entwicklung im Kompositionsprozess von Mozart verdeutlicht, der schon dem Titel nach Klaviersonaten mit begleitender Violine schrieb, in den späten Beiträgen aber dem Streichinstrument immer größere und wichtigere Anteile hin zu einem wirklichen Duo zuschrieb.

Almost a decade after the death of Jacques Israelievitch, who as the youngest assistant concertmaster in Chicago was brought into the orchestra by George Solti at the time and later served as concertmaster of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for 20 years, among others, he and his piano partner Christina Petrowska Quilico present the collection of sonatas for piano and violin plus the two variation cycles by Mozart.

Even if the recording is not new, which you can’t hear from a technical point of view, the duo’s playing is very fresh, with verve and moving intensity. The impression conveyed is of elegantly gripping musicians who want to show their enthusiasm for these pieces. They succeed in doing so excellently. In doing so, they proceed from flowing and natural movement sequences and only subtly emphasize accents and prominent points only discreetly, so that the liveliness of the music is created and preserved, but does not sound artificial.

A first partial listening impression had indicated a certain roughness in the technical realization. This may be due to the fact that Israelievitch was only able to make the last recordings with cancer in its final stages under great pain. Fortunately, this was not confirmed over the longer distance. It is therefore all the more wonderful to hear this sound document, in which the strain is not audible, from a musician who was highly regarded on the North American continent in his day.

This overview also illustrates the development of Mozart’s compositional process. He wrote piano sonatas with an accompanying violin from the title onwards, but in his later works attributed ever greater and more important parts to the string instrument in the direction of a true duo.

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Recorded on June 19, 2024 at Toronto’s Imagine Sound Studios and with producer David Jaeger overseeing the session, the sixty-five-minute recording isn’t presented chronologically as it begins with the fifth in the series and ends with the first, which is considerably longer than the others at twenty-four minutes. It’s interesting that it’s sequenced last, however, when many of its themes re-emerge as foundations for the other parts of the suite, and interesting too is the fact that each part has a different tonal centre, beginning with C for the first, D for the second, and leading up to B for the seventh.

True to the spirit of minimalism, looping patterns effectively evoke the fluid flow of water. Yet while the parts share that aspect, each registers as a distinct statement when variations in tempo, dynamics, and tone are utilized; as Horvat states, “After all, some rivers are long, some are short, some have rapids, and some have calm water.” As Heraclitus famously stated, it’s ever-changing (other Pre-Socratic philosophers noted the flux of reality too), yet at the same time consistent rhythm patterns emerge. However seamlessly More Rivers aligns itself to the minimalism genre, it’s no Glass or Reich imitation; in fact, aside from its looping structures and pulsation, the material sidesteps such simple categorizing when its melodic, textural, and tonal reach is so rich. Even so, the gestures of minimalism pair naturally with the work’s concept when the experience of being immersed in water can induce a meditative, even consciousness-altering state akin to the general effect of classical minimalism.

Each part ebbs and flows in its own way and in accordance with its own nature. Sunlight patterns seem to glint off the water’s lilting surface as the suite gets underway with “More Rivers 5,” upper notes sparkling incandescently as lower accents establish counterpoint. The music’s motion grows relaxing as one surrenders to its push and pull; testifying to its mercurial nature, a coda shifts the presentation into a higher velocity and alters the patterns between the hands. Hypnotic too is the subsequent “More Rivers 4” for the pairing of its triplet-and single note combinations above and its spidery pattern-making below. “More Rivers 3” separates itself from the opening parts in deploying patterns that flutter like butterflies and nimbly dance; similar to the first part, a dramatic change occurs midway through when animation gives way to lyrical languor, even if the energized attack quickly reinstates itself every time it happens.

“More Rivers 2” chimes sweetly, though a strain of plaintive melancholy infuses it with brooding; it’s also long enough at twelve minutes to accommodate gradual transformations, with the music sweeping in density and volume here and pivoting to oceanic clusters there. The shorter sixth and seventh parts let one catch one’s breath before the odyssey that is “More Rivers 1” arrives. Carrying a “for Ann” dedication, the movement is a long-form rhapsody that advances through a series of modulations and contrasts in dynamics, the material unfolding in a tender hush at one moment and resounding grandly at another. A heartfelt quality permeates this expressive performance that conveys the pianist’s depth of feeling for Southam and Horvat’s sincere affection for his late colleague. With the music slowing and growing ever more gentle, the closing minutes of the performance are particularly exquisite.About Southam’s Rivers, Petrowska Quilico states, “There’s a fluid and unpredictable counterpoint to the music, reflecting the rushing cascades, luxuriant eddies, and meditative stillness in the music, which alternates between large kinetic strokes and delicately detailed duets.” After listening to More Rivers, one could be convinced that the pianist was speaking about Horvat’s creation. As a conduit for his music, Petrowska Quilico shows herself to be as adroit an interpreter as she was for Southam when the performances on More Rivers feel very much as if his sensibility is speaking through her. Let’s not forget that there’s an environmental dimension to the project too, with both composer and interpreter keenly aware of the impact of climate change on the planet’s oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers. That’s certainly one of the things worth reflecting upon as the album’s beguiling music floods the listening space.

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While the 12 Nocturnes may be the centrepiece of the recording, particularly the tenth which lends the album its name, and the other nocturnes are spectacular as well. For example, the enormously uplifting second, A Blessing, the sixth, Forget the Day and the ninth Lament for the People of Ukraine, are all especially impactful. With Jaeger’s nocturnes we are treated to the composer’s sublime grasp of the form, and enthralled by Petrowska Quilico’s performance.

Her treatment of the other pieces is absolutely scintillating too. Tom Takemitsu’ s Les Yeux Clos is other-worldly-ethereal, and Henryk Görecki’s Intermezzo is longlimbed and beautiful. Meanwhile Gorecki’ s superb, crepuscular Lullaby is evocative (as an angular contrafact) of Mozart’s Twelve Variations on Ah vous dirai-je, Maman, albeit darker in colour.

Jaeger also gets high marks as session producer of this recording.

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It was 3:40 in the morning. The forest was in absolute stillness, the canoe slipping into the water, barely making a sound. It was a cool September morning on Wildcat Lake in the Haliburton Forest in 1997. My cargo – two condenser microphones and a portable digital recorder – and I were heading out to a floating platform on the far side of the lake, where I would, in the pitch black night, attach the gear to a pre-positioned mic stand bolted to the float, start the recorder, head to the nearest shore, hide with my canoe behind a boulder and await the start of Murray Schafer’s opera, Princess of the Stars. At the same time, my two colleagues, recording engineers David (Stretch) Quinney and Steve Sweeney paddled to two more locations and engaged two more recording positions. We were about a kilometre apart from one another, and we would record several performances of Schafer’s “environmental opera” over the course of a week, to be mixed and assembled for broadcast on our contemporary music show, Two New Hours on CBC Radio Two. That broadcast would eventually, in 1999, win a medal for excellence in performing arts broadcasting at the International Radio Festival of New York.

1997 had been a remarkable year for the Two New Hours team. In June of that year we recorded and broadcast a concert from the Barbara Frum Atrium in the Canadian Broadcasting Centre, a surround-sound event that featured not only the first authentically staged performance of Harry Somers’ (1925–1999) spatially animated Stereophony, but also the world premiere of Borealis, a work we commissioned especially for the occasion by Toronto composer Harry Freedman (1922–2005). This event was produced in collaboration with Soundstreams’ Northern Encounters Festival, described as, “a circumpolar festival of the arts.” Borealis combined the forces of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Danish National Radio Choir, the Swedish Radio Choir, the Elmer Iseler Singers and the Toronto Childrens’ Chorus, all under the direction of conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste. These combined forces surrounded the audience from the ground floor, up into the various levels of balconies ringing the ten-story atrium. The effect of the music was stunning. Harry Freedman himself considered it one of his finest achievements in writing for large-scale musical forces.

We subsequently presented Freedman’s Borealis to the International Rostrum of Composers (IRC) in Paris in 1998, where it was voted fourth overall among the submissions by the delegates from public radio services in 30 countries around the world, leading to broadcasts in those countries. Harry was very pleased with this accomplishment, comparing it to the experience of “being shortlisted for the Booker Prize.” Naturally, he was also pleased to receive the royalties from those many broadcasts.

Earlier in 1997, another of our CBC commissions, Wonder, a work for soprano, orchestra and electronic sounds by Canadian composer Paul Steenhuisen, had even greater success at the IRC. Wonder had been commissioned in 1995 for the CBC Radio Orchestra in Vancouver. The premiere took place in June of 1996 at the Vancouver International New Music Festival, presented by Vancouver New Music. We presented our production of the work at the IRC in 1997, and not only was Steenhuisen’s composition voted third overall, and broadcast on the participating countries’ public radio programs, but the delegate from Austrian Radio was so impressed by the work that he organized an Austrian performance at the Musikprotokoll Festival in Graz. But it didn’t stop there. Christian Scheib, the same Austrian delegate who had been so impressed by Steenhuisen’s Wonder at the IRC, also commissioned a new work by him, for the esteemed Viennese ensemble, Klangforum Wien. Austrian Radio produced the premiere of the new work, Bread, at the Musikprotokoll Festival, conducted an extensive interview with Paul Steenhuisen, and broadcast the premiere of Bread, along with several more of Steenhuisen’s compositions. Writing to me about our original commission of his work, Wonder, Paul said, “Reflecting on it, the piece has had a nice life for itself. So many good things came from its presence at the IRC, so thanks again for taking it there.”

A few years before that, our production of Chris Paul Harman’s Oboe Concerto, was voted second in the Young Composers category of the IRC. This was in 1994, when first place went to the emerging English composer, Thomas Adès for his famous composition, Living Toys, the work that more or less signalled to the world of contemporary music that a new genius had appeared. Harman, in his typically humble manner, told me that “in retrospect, Living Toys should have been ahead by many, many, many more votes – I consider it to be one of Adès’ best works, among a selection of very good works.”

These examples were typical of what we did throughout the 1990s. We found ways to work in larger-scale, and we dared to encourage Canadian composers to develop and excel, and to feed their creative imaginations with the ambition to create works of significance. And when we submitted these larger works in international forums, such as the IRC or the International Radio Festival of New York, our successes were a clear message that our composers, with the help of CBC Radio Music, were seen to be advancing the art form. Our work developing Canada’s composers was beginning to give them international recognition. Interestingly, all of this development came during a climate of cuts to the CBC’s budget. Harold Redekopp, who was head of CBC Radio Music in the mid 1980s, and then vice-president of CBC English Radio from 1992 to 1998, remarked that, for the relatively modest budget allocated to Two New Hours, we created an enormous amount of good will in the musical community.

One of our principal methods of increasing the impact of our limited budget was through creative partnerships with medium- to large-scale organizations. Once our major orchestras began creating new music festivals, first in Winnipeg in 1992, but soon after in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Kitchener-Waterloo and Windsor, we suddenly had the means to create programming that included many more Canadian orchestral and larger-scale compositions. We found that offering to commission ambitious new works by Canadian composers often provided the key to innovative programming, works such as Chan Ka Nin’s Iron Road, Marjan Mozetich’s Affairs of the Heart, Ann Southam’s Webster’s Spin and Murray Schafer’s Thunder: Perfect Mind, all of which, curiously enough, are now accessible on YouTube. Such initiatives often unlocked resources that had been previously uncommitted by potential partners. The programs we were then able to offer our listeners gave them a ringside seat as the music of the future was created.

David Jaeger is a composer, producer and broadcaster based in Toronto.

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